Read This! 08.29.19

Mike Leake

And Now, the Star of the Show…

This is really good.

Lemuel Haynes on Voting When the Options Are Evil

Jared Wilson has made me want to read so much more Lemuel Haynes.

Missing Elements in Our Discussions about Apostasy

I appreciate these additions to our necessary considerations of apostasy in these days.

Cremation: Why and Why Not

Helpfully shows both pros and cons.

Is My Child Ready to Make a Decision to Follow Christ?

It’s a question I hear often.

5 Words to Avoid in Sermons

Sorry, but I’m concluding that this is a helpful thing in my opinion.

Prozac and the Promises of God

Lots to chew on here but this piece on the Christian use of Psychoactive Medication is helpful.

The Text that Nearly Destroyed the Faith of C.S. Lewis

What kind of God seeks our worship?

We Three and Noah Guthrie do a great cover of Billie Jean:

What Is the Ultimate Tragedy?

Mike Leake

jimmyToday’s post comes from my friend Jimmy Snowden. I went to college with Jimmy and have always appreciated his heart for Jesus. When I read this I asked him if I could share it. I thought it helpful.

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What is the ultimate tragedy?

I had to come face to face with this question about 10 years ago.

My wife, Kristal, gave birth to a stillborn baby. Doctors and nurses rushed to the delivery room. They quickly revived our son, but as soon as they revived him, he entered into a seizure that they couldn’t stop. They didn’t think he was going to make it. They rushed him to a superior hospital to do all they could. They were able to stabilize his health, but told us that he would be marked by the effects of a brain injury for the rest of his life. He is now 12 years old and can’t talk, walk, stand, sit, eat, or drink. He has the physical ability of a 4 month old.

When James was first born we prayed for God to heal him. I remember the early days when we prayed for healing not knowing what the future would look like. We still pray for God to heal him.

I’m not sure what the exact day was or where I was, but I remember it was in the early days. I was praying for God to heal James – to give him the ability to eat and walk and talk, and to take his seizures away.

As I was praying, a question came into my mind: What if God were to grant James the gift of physical healing and James were to reject God after such a great gift? God is under no compulsion to heal James. We often times think that God “has” to do these things. He doesn’t.

It was at that point that I realized that the greatest tragedy would not be if God didn’t heal James, but that if God did give James the ability to walk and talk and eat and drink, and James used his speech to curse God’s name. The greatest tragedy would be if God gave him the ability to walk and use his hands to hold things and manipulate his world, only to use those abilities for self-seeking purposes – at the expense of others, as an act of high rebellion against God. What if God were to give him the ability to eat and drink and he were to use this God-given ability to drink himself and drug himself into the gutter of life? What if God were to give him the ability to speak only to use it to lie and speak hurtful things and pledge allegiance to anyone other than Christ?

What is the greatest tragedy? The greatest tragedy is not James’ severe handicap. The greatest tragedy is the thought of taking what God has given us to glorify Him and use these abilities and tools to serve self at the expense of others, to the dishonoring of the name of Christ.

As a result of this intellectual crisis, I began to see that if this was true in regard to James, it was true in regard to me and everyone else who is not handicapped. James’ situation just makes the reality more obvious. If God were to heal James, it would be as plain as the day is long that James’ ability to walk, talk, eat, and drink are gifts of God’s grace, and should be used to serve and honor Christ as a note of gratitude for such a great gift.

But here’s where this applies to you and me. Just because God gave you these abilities from the get-go does not mean that these abilities are any less from God. If you weren’t able to talk or walk for decade upon decade and you and your family were to pray and pray and pray and God were to suddenly heal you, wouldn’t you feel the need to live a life of grateful service, using those abilities not to serve self, but God and others?

What I am suggesting is that whether God gave you those abilities from the get-go or not, those abilities are given to you by God – and can be taken away from you at any moment.

The greatest tragedy is not for God to not heal James. The greatest tragedy would be for God to grant James such great ability and then for James to use these abilities to pursue a life of rebellion against God, in the face of such goodness of God to him.

The greatest tragedy for you and me is for you to have received such gifts – gifts that God does not give to everyone (exhibit A: James), and to use those gifts to serve yourself at the expense of others.

Imagine if someone were to give you a financial gift of $1,000,000.00 and you were to use this money to purchase a top of the line firearm and then use it to put to death the one who gave you the financial gift. This is what it is to have received the gift of intelligence, physical ability, speech, etc., and then to use these abilities for your own selfish desires, to the dishonoring of the very one who gave you all this.

Whether you are a Christian or a non-Christian, you ought to be ashamed of yourself if you don’t use all that God has given you to bless and honor and serve Him. To use what He has given you to serve yourself without a thought to Him is the very essence of ingratitude and sin.

The greatest tragedy is not for God to not heal. The greatest tragedy is for God to heal you and then to use the abilities that come with healing to serve yourself to the dishonoring of the name of the One who healed you.

In other words, the greatest good is not progress or success, but gratitude and faithfulness.

1 Corinthians 4:7; “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”

Romans 1:21–22; “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.”

Read This! 08.27.19

Mike Leake

Hey Church: A Fallow Year Ain’t A Bad Idea

The logistics of this would be interesting.

Finding Amelia Earhart’s Plane

This looks like the makings of a show on the History Channel.

3 Reasons Drifting from the Faith Starts with Drifting from the Church

Seldom (if ever) have I seen someone “take a break” from the gathering church and end up healthier on the other side.

Shepherding Through Hostility

I appreciate Jared’s work here.

What Does ‘Born of Water and the Spirit’ Mean in John 3:5?

As one who formerly held the “natural birth” position, I’ve been fairly convinced of this position for quite some time now.

The Man They Need You to Be

These still resonate with me.

When the Weight of Pastoring Seems Too Much to Bear

Yeah, there really are seasons where it feels like too much.

The God Who Asks

I enjoyed this.

This is impressive. Enter Sandman in the Style of David Bowie:

When You Don’t Want to Sacrifice Anymore

Mike Leake

Sometimes things feel too heavy. Sacrifice weighs far more than joy and hope and rest. And our bones ache and our souls wither a bit. We were told not to become weary in doing good—but here we are.

Weary. I can’t give another inch. I don’t want to be “spilled out as a drink offering” any more. I want to relax without the weight of the world. I don’t want to be out in front of people. I don’t want to carry my burdens much less the burdens of others.

Over there in the distance is a man weeping in a garden. He looks weary. Maybe the most weary I’ve ever seen a man. He’s trembling. His inner turmoil is creeping through cracks in his forehead, falling like drops of blood onto the rocks. There is nothing calm about this man.

If you know his story then you know the reason for his sorrow. He’s about to face death, but not just any death. This is a sacrificial death. It’s the type were all your dreams are set ablaze on the altar of somebody else’s dreams. He’ll be crushed so somebody else doesn’t have to be. And nobody in history has known joy like this man. Nobody has known intimacy with God like this man. There is not one other soul who has been to the heights like he has. He’s giving up more than we could even think possible.

There has to be a brief moment when he simply didn’t want to do it. Otherwise the words, “not my will but your will” mean nothing. James Edwards is correct,

“Jesus’ prayer is not the result of calm absorption into an all-encompassing divine presence, but an intense struggle with the frightful reality of God’s will and what it means fully to submit to him.”

There isn’t “peace beyond all understanding” in this moment. It’s torrential torment.

Thankfully he’s not alone. Not quite yet. He still has a few followers that have followed him. These companions could serve as a motivator. As a solider keeps a picture of his sweetheart back home as a reminder of what they’re fighting for. These men, who he has just shared a meal and drink with, could serve as great reminders. Because it will be for such as these that he’s going to be hung on a tree—hopeless, helpless, forsaken, smitten by God.

And he goes back to check on them. He’d told them to pray. They had to have seen on his face how important and intense this moment was. This ought to be one of those sitting by the bedside as your grandmother dies moments. Where sleep isn’t even on the table. It ought to be one of those moments when everything is heightened and time slows down. They ought to be intensely praying.

And wouldn’t it be great for Jesus if he goes back in that moment and his disciples are wide awake and they meet him with those helpless and adorable puppy dog eyes. It’d be a great reminder that his sacrifice is for worthy and lovely and appreciative people. It’d be great if they too were drenched in prayer sweat. But instead they’re covered in sleepy drool.

That’s who he is dying for. This is who he is giving everything up for. People who can’t even stay awake for an hour and pray for him. They can’t give an ounce to him. His one moment where he—the omnipotent One who created everything—seems to be saying to his disciples, “Guys, I really need you right now”. He needs a friend a reason to sacrifice, and he gets nothing.

But this is another one of those great reminders that Jesus isn’t dying for them because they’re beautiful or because they’re his buds. He doesn’t get puppy dog eyes to motivate him. He gets a precursor to the abandonment that he knows is coming. In those intense moments where he is wrestling in prayer He is pleading with His Papa that somehow the Shepherd won’t have to be struck and the sheep won’t have to be scattered. The answer (oh, what a painful and crushing answer) to his prayer is found in the sleeping disciples. He will be abandoned by them. When the Shepherd is struck they will be scattered. 

I want to say that Jesus could have in that moment said, “I won’t do it! I won’t be pierced! I won’t be crushed! I won’t give it all up for these sleepy losers! I’m not going to give up my life for these weak men who are abandoning me in my moment of greatest need. I won’t do it!” But the truth is Jesus couldn’t have said something like that because that’s foreign to who He is.

Yes, we are met in Gethsemane with the full-force of Jesus’ humanity. But we’re also met with the depth of his other-worldly love. It’s not a love tied to our ability to “stay awake”. And his obedience to the Father does not have a precursor of, “so long as they’re worth my sacrifice”. He obeys the Father because that’s what he does. Even if it means his death. He loves because it’s who He is.

And then you see the man get up from his anguished prayer. He wakes his disciples. And with face like flint he marches to Calvary–to die for those sleepy disciples who’ve now abandoned him in his darkest hour.

The rooster crows.

And the sleepy disciple finally awakes.

“shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you…” 1 Peter 5:2

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Photo source: here